Learning for a Loved One

The power of Mishnah study to raise the level of a departed soul.

When a loved one passes away, we want to do whatever we can to honor their memory, to bring additional merit to their soul.

In Jewish tradition, one way of honoring the deceased is to say Kaddish, the public affirmation of belief in God.

Yet the Sages speak of an even more powerful method for elevating the departed soul: the learning of Mishnah, the Jewish legal code that forms the basis of the Talmud. In fact, the Chidah, the legendary master of Kabbalah, states that the merit of Mishnah study is seven-fold that of reciting Kaddish.

How so? The word Mishnah is comprised of the same letters as Neshama -- soul. It is through the Torah that God forged His eternal covenant with the Jewish nation. Thus it is Torah study, particularly Mishnah, which symbolizes the soul's connections to the foundations of Jewish history, and the eternal spiritual bond with God.

Benefiting the Deceased

The Talmud says that on Rosh Hashana, God makes a Din v'Cheshbon -- a judgment and an accounting. The Vilna Gaon explains that these are two separate elements: 1) a person is accountable for his actions over the previous year, and 2) God also accounts for the actions that a person influenced others to do.

A deceased person is no longer able to perform actions in this world, and thus is incapable of directly acquiring new merit. But s/he can continue to influence the actions of others.

Thus, in undertaking Mishnah study, the merit may be designated for the benefit of your deceased loved one -- parent, grandparent, or friend.

Arranging for Mishnah Study

For many people, however, Mishnah study is too difficult to be properly undertaken. The Mishnah's 63 tractates, broken into 6 Orders covering some 525 chapters and 4200 detailed laws, cover subjects as diverse as torts, business ethics, agricultural laws, marital issues, festivals and virtually every subject under the sun. The Mishnah's breadth is so imposing that it is rarely mastered even by scholars who spend many years steeped in its intensive study.

Beyond this in complexity is the Talmud, the massive compendium explaining the Mishnah. The Talmud consists of 5,422 pages; some are unable to complete reading the Talmud even once in a lifetime.

Aish.com, being located in the Jewish Quarter of Jerusalem, is privileged to have access to some of the finest Torah scholars alive today. As such, we are able to arrange for Mishnah or Talmud study to be done specifically in the merit of your loved one.

Mishnah/Talmud study is often done during the first 12 months following a death, with a special emphasis to study all of Mishnah within the initial 30-day mourning period. But it can also be done on the annual yahrtzeit, or at any other time. There is no statute of limitations to one's ability to elevate the soul of the deceased.

It would represent a truly significant source of merit to have Mishnah or Talmud studied in the memory of your loved one -- enhancing the sanctity and tranquility of their eternal soul.

For details on how to arrange Mishnah/Talmud Study
in memory of your loved one:

I’m wondering what happened to the House of David. After the end of the Kingdom of Judah was there any memory what happened to King David’s descendants? Is there any family today which can trace its lineage to David – and whom the Messiah might descend from?

The Aish Rabbi Replies:

Thank you for your good question. There is no question that King David’s descendants are alive today. God promised David through Nathan the Prophet that the monarchy would never depart from his family (II Samuel 7:16). The prophets likewise foretell the ultimate coming of the Messiah, descendant of David, the “branch which will extend from the trunk of Jesse,” who will restore the Davidic dynasty and Israel’s sovereignty (Isaiah 11:1, see also Jeremiah 33:15, Ezekiel 37:25).

King David’s initial dynasty came to an end with the destruction of the First Temple and the Babylonian Exile. In an earlier expulsion King Jehoiachin was exiled by Nebuchadnezzar, together with his family and several thousand of the Torah scholars and higher classes (II Kings 24:14-16). Eleven years later the Temple was destroyed. The final king of Judah, Jehoiachin’s uncle Zedekiah, was too exiled to Babylonia. He was blinded and his children were executed (II Kings 25:7).

However, Jehoiachin and his descendants did survive in exile. Babylonian cuneiform records actually attest to Jehoiachin and his family receiving food rations from the government. I Chronicles 3:17:24 likewise lists several generations of his descendants (either 9 or 15 generations, depending on the precise interpretation of the verses), which would have extended well into the Second Temple era. (One was the notable Zerubbabel, grandson of Jehoiachin, who was one of the leaders of the return to Zion and the construction the Second Temple.)

In Babylonia, the leader of the Jewish community was known as the Reish Galuta (Aramaic for “head of the exile,” called the Exilarch in English). This was a hereditary position recognized by the Babylonian government. Its bearer was generally quite wealthy and powerful, well-connected to the government and wielding much authority over Babylonian Jewry.

According to Jewish tradition, the Exilarch was a direct descendant of Jehoiachin. The Talmud (Sanhedrin 5a) understands Genesis 49:10 – Jacob’s blessing to Judah that “the staff would not be removed from Judah” – as a reference to the Exilarchs in Babylonia, “who would chastise Israel with the staff,” i.e., who exercised temporal authority over the Jewish community. It stands to reason that these descendants of Judah were descendants of David’s house, who would have naturally been the leaders of the Babylonian community, in fulfillment of God’s promise to David that authority would always rest in his descendants.

There is also a chronological work, Seder Olam Zutta (an anonymous text from the early Middle Ages), which lists 39 generations of Exilarchs beginning with Jehoiachin. One of the commentators to Chronicles, the Vilna Gaon, states that the first one was Elionai of I Chronicles 3:23.

The position of Exilarch lasted for many centuries. The Reish Galuta is mentioned quite often in the Talmud. As can be expected, some were quite learned themselves, some deferred to the rabbis for religious matters, while some, especially in the later years, fought them and their authority tooth and nail.

Exilarchs existed well into the Middle Ages, throughout the period of the early medieval scholars known as the Gaonim. The last ones known to history was Hezekiah, who was killed in 1040 by the Babylonian authorities, although he was believed to have had sons who escaped to Iberia. There are likewise later historical references to descendants of the Exilarchs, especially in northern Spain (Catelonia) and southern France (Provence).

Beyond that, there is no concrete evidence as to the whereabouts of King David’s descendants. Supposedly, the great French medieval sage Rashi (R. Shlomo Yitzchaki) traced his lineage to King David, although on a maternal line. (In addition, Rashi himself had only daughters.) The same is said of Rabbi Yehuda Loewe of Prague (the Maharal). Since Ashkenazi Jews are so interrelated, this is a tradition, however dubious today, shared by many Ashkenazi Jews.

In any event, we do not need be concerned today how the Messiah son of David will be identified. He will be a prophet, second only to Moses. God Himself will select him and appoint him to his task. And he himself, with his Divine inspiration, will resolve all other matters of Jewish lineage (Maimonides Hilchot Melachim 12:3).

Yahrtzeit of Kalonymus Z. Wissotzky, a famous Russian Jewish philanthropist who died in 1904. Wissotzky once owned the tea concession for the Czar's entire military operation. Since the Czar's soldiers numbered in the millions and tea drinking was a daily Russian custom, this concession made Wissotzky very rich. One day, Wissotzky was approached by the World Zionist Organization to begin a tea business in Israel. He laughed at this preposterous idea: the market was small, the Turkish bureaucracy was strict, and tea leaves from India were too costly to import. Jewish leaders persisted, and Wissotzky started a small tea company in Israel. After his death, the tea company passed to his heirs. Then in 1917, the communists swept to power in Russia, seizing all of the Wissotzky company's assets. The only business left in their possession was the small tea company in Israel. The family fled Russia, built the Israeli business, and today Wissotzky is a leading brand of tea in Israel, with exports to countries worldwide -- including Russia.

Building by youth may be destructive, while when elders dismantle, it is constructive (Nedarim 40a).

It seems paradoxical, but it is true. We make the most important decisions of our lives when we are young and inexperienced, and our maximum wisdom comes at an age when our lives are essentially behind us, and no decisions of great moment remain to be made.

While the solution to this mystery eludes us, the facts are evident, and we would be wise to adapt to them. When we are young and inexperienced, we can ask our elders for their opinion and then benefit from their wisdom. When their advice does not coincide with what we think is best, we would do ourselves a great service if we deferred to their counsel.

It may not be popular to champion this concept. Although we have emerged from the era of the `60s, when accepting the opinion of anyone over thirty was anathema, the attitude of dismissing older people as antiquated and obsolete has-beens who lack the omniscience of computerized intelligence still lingers on.

Those who refuse to learn from the mistakes of the past are doomed to repeat them. We would do well to swallow our youthful pride and benefit from the teachings of the school of experience.

Today I shall...

seek advice from my elders and give more serious consideration to deferring to their advice when it conflicts with my desires.

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